Bio of Meta SCHULDT (b.1862 d.1890), Goodhue Co., MN USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by: Chuck Miller Bio of Meta Schuldt 1862-1890 By Charles W. Miller Copyright © March 2000 In the middle of the summer of 1884, the German steam ship Bohemia landed in the port of New York. Aboard this ship was a young German girl striking out on her own. She had boarded the ship in the great harbor of Hamburg and lived in the bowels of the ship in compartment #4 (1) with other Germans looking for a new chance in a New Land. So on the 17th of July (2), Meta Schuldt exited the ship that brought her from everything she had ever known to America. The New York paper had various headlines from the Old Country - people dying from cholera in Marseilles, the German Prince Bismarck was gathering engineers to dig the Kiel canal, and the French and the Germans were still bickering at each other (3). None of this would have made sense to Meta since she could only read and write German but even if she could read the paper, the only page that really held any interest to her was the final page, the page with listings of the railways to continue her journey westward. She was traveling with all her earthly possessions in one piece of baggage. How long and what train she took to continue west have been lost in the sands of time but she reached her final destination, the fertile area of Red Wing Minnesota. It would have interesting to learn why this young woman would undertake this long and arduous trip from everyone and thing she had known but we know that she did and that starts the next portion of her story. By the middle of winter, she had met and married a young man by the name of Cord Lütje Dammann from the small village of Hedendorf (4) in the Kingdom of Hannover. How ironic that she had traveled over the thousands of miles to marry a person from the same kingdom that she had departed just 7 months earlier. Meta and Louis (the name that he would go by for the rest of his life) were married on February 27, 1885 (5) in the town of Red Wing, Goodhue county, Minnesota. They would take up their home in Belvidere township of Goodhue county. This young woman probably felt that she had been blessed after her long journey to have a new husband and to have their marriage blessed even more with the birth of their 2 girls, Anna Margret on February 14, 1886 (6) and Maria on November 23, 1888 (7). However, as in most fairy tales, there lies a dark side and into this marriage a dark side would appear. On November 25, 1890 (8)(1 day after her 28th birthday), Meta would die of peritonitis (9) in the township of Belvidere, probably in the same room that she had given birth to her 2 baby girls. In just a little more than 6 years, her dream of a new country and a new life had came to an end, or did it? After her death, her youngest daughter, Maria, would also die at the tender age of 11 (10) but her other daughter would thrive and marry and more children would be born and her name and dream would be remembered. Where does this young German woman rest for all time? Does her young daughter sleep by her side or does she too lie unremembered in an unmarked (?) grave? But is her name truly remembered? There are signs that her name has been remembered, though faintly, when her oldest daughter, Anna Margret, named her first born, a daughter, Helen Meta Marie Betcher (11). While Meta is probably from Anna's mother, is the Marie from her dead sister or her husband's mother name or both? Sources: (1) New York Passenger list, National Archives and Records Administration, Anchorage, AK: Drawer 38/6, series M237, film 478. (2) Germans to America, Volume 50, July 1884 - November 1884, page 46; Ira A. Glazier(Editor), P. William Filby (Editor)/Hardcover/Published 1996; Loussac Library, Anchorage, AK. (3) New York Times, July 17, 1884; Loussac Library, Anchorage, AK. (4) Stammbuch der Familie, Dammann; 1998; page 44. Editor: Heino Dammann. Information was received from Dot Barnum in December 1999. (5) Goodhue County, Marriage Records, Book 9, 1882-1885, page 572, Red Wing, Minnesota; May 1997. (6) Goodhue County, Birth Records, Book 2, page 132, line 18, Red Wing, Minnesota; May 1997. Birth was recorded on Jan 4, 1887. (7) Goodhue County, Birth Records, Book 2, page 176, line 35, Red Wing, Minnesota; December 1999. Information was provided by Gene Dammann. (8) Goodhue County, Death Records, Book 2, page 408, line 4, Red Wing, Minnesota; May 1997. Death was recorded on December 10, 1890. (9) Peritonitis is caused by inflammation of the membrane that lines the abdominal cavity. Examples are: ruptured appendix, infected Fallopian tube or ruptured ovarian cyst. Can also be caused by kidney failure or rheumatic fever. (10) Goodhue County, Death Records; December 1999. Information was provided by Gene Dammann. (11) Wabasha County, Birth Records, Volume D, page 209, line 2, Wabasha, Minnesota; May 1999.